"The deed is done. Too late trying to convince me of anything now."

 I blogged, 5 years ago today, with this photograph:

"Meade and I walked over to the First Congregational Church, walked through the dark hallways, and passing us right at this point was a young man in a black T-shirt that said in big letters: TRUMP. I'm keeping my privacy about how I voted, so don't even ask. I wish the best for my fellow Americans and hope that whatever happens, you'll be able to handle it."

That was written at 10:55 in the morning, when we had no idea what a wild crazy day it would be. 

In the comments, Snark wrote:

Has Althouse said why her vote will be private this time? (or were past votes initially private as well? Can't remember, but I don't think so?) That's what I'm curious about, and what it means in the abstract if it can be extrapolated in any way to the thinking and behaviour of other voters. I could hypothesize that as a blogger she just doesn't want the distraction and inherent uselessness of knee-jerk blowback in the comments for the next four years, either way. Or that she perceives some value to the blog in being formally inscrutable. Or that she is being practical given that her commenters and perhaps her readers too lean right, and she has already sensed a shift in tone at times that suggests prudence. I wonder, too, if she and Meade voted the same way or differently.

Did I ever reveal how I voted? I think I eventually did, but I can't remember why or where. I wasn't happy with the choice! I wasn't happy in 2020 either, but in 2020, I revealed who I voted for: No one!

"[Stephen] Stills may be hobbled by arthritis—backstage he bumps fists rather than shakes hands with fans..."

"... he has carpal tunnel and residual pain from a long-ago broken hand, which affects his playing—and he is nearly deaf, but his performance life has continued. Drugs and alcohol may have dented him somewhat, forming a kind of carapace over the youthful sensitivity and cockiness one often saw in the face of the young Stills. Some might infer by looking at the spry James Taylor or Mick Jagger that heroin is less hard on the body than cocaine and booze, which perhaps tear down the infrastructure. ('Stills doesn’t know how to do drugs properly,' Keith Richards once said.) But one has to hand it to a rock veteran who still wants to get on stage and make music even when his youthful beauty and once-tender, husky baritone have dimmed. It shows allegiance to the craft, to the life, to the music. It risks a derisive sort of criticism as well as an assault on nostalgia."

The novelist Lorrie Moore writes a book review (NYRB) for a biography of Stephen Stills. 

I'm interested in reading the review because Lorrie Moore wrote it. I don't particularly care about Stephen Stills, but if Moore wants to describe him, I'm up for hearing about his carapace and his infrastructure. And I do love this one song...



... which I believe somebody brought up in one of the comments sections this morning. Let's see. Ah, yes. Here it is: pacwest said:

Oh, come on. It's just take out. It's not as if the NYT advised us to hire a personal chef.

I wish I had some proof that journalism is now tailored only to an audience rich enough to afford the paywall. pic.twitter.com/uV0k0EFq49

— Gladstone (@WGladstone) July 30, 2017

And I'm sure they just meant hire a maid service to come in once a week.

Here's the article, "Want to Be Happy? Buy More Takeout and Hire a Maid, Study Suggests." Let's see. Oh! The text uses the term "household help." That sounds like the live-in kind of maid. By the way, the word "maid" only appears in the headline, and the headline appears over a photograph of a a man cleaning a toilet.

I don't know what kind of gender-equity aspiration was swirling through their cranium when they chose the word "maid" to go with the image of a man. We don't want a woman stooping to clean the toilet. Let's have a man.

But go ahead and use "maid" in the headline, and don't worry about using a dark-skinned man in that photograph. How else are we going to signal that he's paid to clean the toilet and isn't just the husband doing his share of the housework in the thousandth NYT article on how men don't do their share of the housework?

IN THE COMMENTS: Snark said:

That is a woman cleaning the toilet. She has breasts, narrow wrists and longish hair on top. And now she has to clean the sink again because the asshole photographer is probably standing on it.

You might be right. I looked again. I'm thinking perhaps the NYT chose to present a non-binary person. And yet, if that's how the Times is presenting these days — non-binary-friendly — it shouldn't be saying "maid."